The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-08-03
PRINTERS INK.

The growth of Wichita. Kansas. is
one of the wonderful things of this
wonderful age. Two or three years ago
it was an insignificant little town
pitched out on Kansas prairie. Very
few people ever heard the name, and
fewer still could tell whether it belonged
to an Indian, was the title of village,
or the designation of some unimport-
ant stream. All at once we began to
hear of Wichita. A boom had struck
the place, and there was first an in
quiry as to its location and then rush
for the burg. In little while newspa-
pers and people were talking of Wichita
as a city, and to-day it is one of the
leading cities of the great State, and
reaching out for the craftsmanship. All
this remarkable Transformation has
taken place within three years, and
most of it within two. The story of
how it was brought about is interesting
and instructive. 1t is told by a citizen
of the place, business man who took
part in the work of booming the town.
He says.
We organized We held almost nightly
meetings, and among the frsL things we
agreed upon was to hang together and stay
by each other through thick and thin.
We advertised by hundreds of thousands
of circulars We set forth all our adyan-
tages in such manner that strangers who
were led By our circulars to give us call
daNai-cd bVJt nm fhA contrary
agreed that we had not put it as strong as
we might.
Every town in the east of notoriety was
not only served with our circulars, but our
ing did double duty. Our people made it a
rule to ask all their friends to advertise.
We then subscribed for large number of
copies, loaded with local advertising and
great advantages, and we found by convers-
ing with parties who finally came here PROS
pect ng, that the full advertising columns
of our papers which they had seen did more
than ali else to impress them with the
growth and importance ofthe pla e.
We found then we could not overdo this
thing-that the more we paid out for these
purposes the more were our profits. Every
new conner was q customer to most of our
stores, and viii their advertising paid to
them rich returns, 1t served the double pur-
pose to impress the eastern man who had an
eye to business with the fact that Wichita
on until we have added population since l
came here of over 10000, and property has
increased in business places more than
thouSand-fold and in the country round
about us the appreciation has been over 400
per cent.
know as well as you can know that
printers ink is the best capital to boom a
town. Had we not used 1t unsparlngly
Wichita would not have been larger than
Carthage. AS it is, we will soon outrank any
town in the State.
One of these days Salt Lake will
something of the kind. We
are going to BOOM" and our people
might as well get ready for the business,
and learn how to do their part. As
starter we must cease our local quarrels
and become united in our own pur
poses. That much accomplished, the
rest will be comparatively easy, for if
our people begin to pull together
they can accomplish more than any
other people on earth. The intelligence,
the energy, the spirit of enterprise are
all here. They are now lacking in di-
rection and unity of purpose, but these
will come one of these days, and then
profiting by the experience of Wichita
and other doomed towns, we will forge
ahead and present to the world an ex
ample of what can be done by printers
ink and the wisdom to use it properly
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